


Communication

by cafephan



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: First Kiss, Halloween, Haunted House, ghost hunt - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 23:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5109146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cafephan/pseuds/cafephan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil persuades Dan to investigate a renowned haunted house with him on Halloween.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Communication

“I’m not doing this, no fucking way” Dan stated as he and Phil stood before one of the most locally renowned paranormal hotspots – in short, they were at a haunted house, and Dan was panicking. Phil, on the other hand, was buzzing with excitement.

“Come on, it’ll be fun!” Phil persuaded, taking a step closer to the doorstep. Dan stayed where he was.

“It’ll be fun because there are no such thing as ghosts, right?” Dan questioned, mainly for his own sanity.

Phil turned around and gave him an _are you serious_ look.

“Right. Of course they are, I knew that” Dan mumbled as he took a deep breath and followed Phil.

Phil had always been fascinated with the paranormal, and every day Dan would be sent paranormal evidence and proof from various points around the world. Rather alarmingly, the very house they were stood in front of was home to one of the crispest Class-A EVPs the country had ever known. Twinned with shadow figures, mysterious moving furniture and eerie voices in general, the house was always in high demand to be investigated, its just luck that Dan and Phil managed to gain access, they didn’t even know how they did. Being famous certainly does have its perks.

“Earth to Howell” Phil brought Dan out of his thoughts and after a gulp Dan nodded and ascended the two stairs to the front door.

Phil was giddy beside him, practically bouncing as he pushed the door open, causing a huge creak to echo through the abandoned house.

Dan squeezed his eyes shut as he took a few steps into the house, the smell of a stale house and years upon years of layered dust was more than enough to push Dan back out of the door, but Phil was on auto-pilot and pulled him straight back in by his wrist.

The action forced Dan’s eyes to open, and he could barely believe such a place could exist. What once was a regal red, swirled carpet was now a faded, blurred mix of greys and blacks, and was crumpled at either side. Cobwebs of dust dangled from the candelabras that hung from the wall, and paintings that once displayed the former tenants were torn down the middle, clawed, arguably, and two halves of the family’s faces hung limply from the frame.

“Right, where should we start?” Phil chimed, clasping his hands together. His eyes were practically twinkling, and Dan would be lying if he said this eagerness wasn’t even the littlest bit palpable.

“You’re the one that watches ghost hunting shows every day, you lead” Dan replied, crossing his arms over his chest.

Phil pressed his lips together as he was deep in thought, jumping back into life a few seconds later and skipping in the direction of the kitchen, leaving Dan alone in the front hallway.

“What am I meant to do?” Dan called, keeping his voice hushed out of pure fear. Nothing yet had happened, but he had learnt to expect the worst throughout his life, this would probably be the only scenario where that mindset is the ideal.

“Set the stuff up” Phil called back, and Dan looked down at one of the backpacks that Phil had dropped, and unzipped it carefully.

“What kind of stuff do you mean? Our phones and this old cassette player?” Dan asked in confusion.

A few seconds later Phil ran back in and took the devices.

“This isn’t a cassette player, you spork” he tutted in disapproval as he switched the device on and handed the torches back. “It’s a digital recorder, for capturing EVPs”

Dan’s eyes widened as the red record button began to flash. “What the fuck do you have that for? We’re not properly doing any investigating, are we? Oh my god Phil I thought we were just here for a walk around, I didn’t know we-“

Phil cut him off by placing a finger to his lips, and his gaze turned to the ceiling where loud footsteps walked overhead. When Phil made eye contact with Dan again, he was grinning widely. He pointed to the ceiling and then the stairs. When Dan shook his head vigorously, Phil dismissively waved his hand and took gentle hold of Dan’s wrist.

Once upstairs, Phil placed the recorder on one of the radiator cases.

“For stability, there won’t be any of our interference contaminating it” he explained, and Dan nodded, any speech would only be a string of curse words and begs to leave.

Phil then led them into one of the old bedrooms, and let go of Dan’s wrist to dash over to the side of the four-post bed, where three distinct scratch marks laid across the bedside table.

“The dust around it has moved, it’s not on top of it, do you realise what this means?” Phil asked, his focus not shifting from the scratch marks. “These are recent, like, really recent” he concluded, without giving Dan a chance to answer. As Dan walked over to join him and looked at the table, his breath hitched in his throat, something serious was going down in this house.

“Let us not waste any more time” Phil said decisively, placing one of their cameras (usually reserved for filming YouTube videos) on a tripod at the opposite end of the room, filming the table and bed, just in case of any further activity.

“How many of our cameras did you bring?” Dan asked, but Phil ignored him as he adjusted the settings on the camera and hit record, and scurried out of the room.

The rest of the rooms were pretty uneventful, the source of the footsteps remained anonymous, but Dan couldn’t help but smile at how passionate Phil felt about the whole ordeal, how he eagerly walked into every room, explored it, placed a camera at each hotspot (which he had unsurprisingly researched beforehand, it also turned out he had taken all but one of their cameras). Despite his pure, unadulterated fear, Dan felt undeniably safer with Phil around, he knew about this stuff, he lived and breathed the paranormal.

After scouring the downstairs rooms too, they went to different areas of the house placing other digital recorders down, and then regrouped in the main hallway. The time was now creeping onto ten p.m., which Phil decided was a perfect time to start investigating. Dan was still slightly reeling, having thought they were only having a little explore, not a full blown investigation, but there was little he could do about it now, he didn’t fancy flagging down a taxi at this time of night and facing the dark, empty flat alone.

“I want to go after the footsteps-“ Phil began, but was cut off by the very same footsteps as before, now at a location further down the upstairs hallway. Dan swallowed thickly, the reality of the situation slowly but surely dawning on him. “That’ll be them now, off we go”

Phil bounded up the stairs and Dan trailed behind, straight in the direction of the footsteps from before. They ended up in what used to be the master bedroom, and sat on the bed slowly, as to not disturb any of the equipment set up around it.

“This is definitely where they came from, right?” Phil whispered, and Dan shrugged, just as footsteps echoed from the corridor just outside the room they were in, and the wooden panels at the doorway of the room they were in creaked softly, but noticeable enough. Dan’s blood ran cold, and Phil grabbed Dan’s arm, shaking it.

“Pass the Ovilus 3” he requested.

“What the fuck is an Ovilus 3? I hope it’s a latin term for getting us the fuck out of here like now” Dan snapped back in a panic, his gaze fixed on the doorway.

He heard Phil sigh, then the backpack on his back unzipping, and one of the heavy weights from it being lifted. Phil fumbled with the device as he attempted to set it up in a rush, and it seemed a million years that the device was finally ready and the four LED lights all flashed sequentially signalling the device was working.

Dan continued to whisper Phil’s name under his breath to tell him what was happening, but Phil was currently speaking to a wider range of recipients.

“Hello, residents of this lovely home,” he spoke loudly, and his choice of wording made Dan chuckle, but Phil gently hit him in the back as a way of shutting him up, before continuing. “My name’s Phil, and this is Dan. We mean you no harm, but we would like to talk to you. Now, I’m going to place this device, the one with the different coloured lights, on the bed next to Dan, and you can use it to talk to us. Whatever you say will show up on the screen for us to see” Phil explained the device’s purpose for both any spirits that may be near and for Dan, who was clueless up to that point.

He placed the Ovilus on the aged bedspread beside Dan, and then they played the silent, waiting game. A minute or two passed without the device alerting once, so Phil decided to try a different tactic.

“Did you die here?” Phil asked loudly, making even Dan jump, just as he had gotten used to the silence.

No response.

“How did you die?” he asked as a follow-up question, and Dan squeezed his eyes, not wanting to know if a response occurred or not.

_Knife,_ the Ovilus replied in broken English, only reading the word phoneme by phoneme, and Dan placed his head in his hands.

“This isn’t fucking funny, Phil. Okay? You’ve got me, you’ve trolled me. I’m scared, you win” Dan shouted, startling Phil who was sitting patiently behind him. Dan turned around so they were sitting face to face.

“I’m terrified, okay? I’m fucking terrified. You’ve got me, you win, alright? You can stop this now” he shouted again, and Phil held up his hands.

“Dan, I swear I’m not-“

“Save it, just please stop this whole thing, you win, okay? You win, I can’t believe you brought me here just to-“

_Ha ha ha,_ the device interrupted him. He felt a shiver down his spine, and his blood again ran cold.

“They’re laughing at us...” Phil whispered breathlessly, darting his gaze down to the device. Dan could still see the dark silhouettes of Phil’s hands which were still up by his head, so he couldn’t be manipulating the device. This was real. This was happening.

_Coming,_ the device sprang into life again, and both men were utterly engrossed in it, waiting with bated breath for it to say something else.

_Soon_

_Run_

_Help_

_Goodbye_

“Oh my god” Phil said after around a minute of the device’s last communication. He checked to see if the Ovilus had simply died and that was why they weren’t getting anything else, but the LED lights were still lit, the device was still in working order.

Before another word could be uttered, a very distinct crashing and banging noise came from one of the rooms at the opposite end of the hallway, and both Dan and Phil scrambled to their feet before slowly walking towards where the noise occurred, though both sets of legs had effectively turned to jelly and walking was proving a difficult feat.

“I think it was this room,” Phil whispered as they reached the most distant bedroom at the end of the hallway – the one with the scratched bedside table. “Pass me a torch” he requested, and Dan, without thinking, retrieved one of the torches from the backpack and placed it in Phil’s hand, which was trembling just as much as his own.

Dan sub-consciously rested his head on Phil’s shoulder, seeking any kind of comfort, as Phil shone the torch around the room, eventually settling on the source of the previous disruption.

“Phil, I’m so scared right now” Dan whispered, voice trembling. Phil’s free hand found Dan’s and squeezed it softly, before Phil led them into the room, following the focal of the torchlight.

The tripod had been knocked over forcefully, as it was a good portion of the way across the room, and the camera had been placed on the windowsill, pointing at the doorway where Dan and Phil stood, working perfectly.

“There’s no scientific explanation, I-“ Phil stopped mid-sentence as he shone the torch around the room again, not settling in any one place.

“I think we should try out the Paranormal Puck” he told Dan, whom squeezed Phil’s hand as if to say ‘I have no clue what the hell you’re talking about’. No doubt it was another piece of ghost-hunting equipment from one of the shows Phil watches religiously, so Dan didn’t bother questioning it, nor where he bought all the stuff from.

“It’s in the other bag downstairs, I’ll go set it up. In the meantime could you do an EVP session in here? Use the other Ovilus if you’re at a dead end” Phil’s words seemed monotonous after he implied Dan stay in the room himself, and he begged Phil not to leave him.

“I’ll be ten minutes tops, I promise. Just sit on the floor or on the bed, place this recorder in front of you,” Phil placed a spare digital recorder into Dan’s hand, “and ask questions, it’s simple and painless and I’ll be back before you know it”

“I’m scared for my life here, Phil, I don’t think you understand how-“ he was interrupted by Phil leaning in and pressing his lips to Dan’s softly, sweetly.

“I’ll give you another later if you do this” Phil whispered once they broke apart, and Dan felt the colour rush to his cheeks, and just for a second, a split second, he forgot about everything, his fear, where they were, what they were doing, and it was euphoric.

“Okay let’s get some ghosts on tape” Dan announced loudly and cheerfully as Phil squeezed his hand again before leaving the room and heading down the stairs.

Dan set the camera back up on its tripod – trying desperately to forget how it was discovered in its previous position – and sat on the bed, placing the recorder in front of him, hitting record, then retrieving a spare Ovilus 3 device, as the other was still in the other bedroom, and placing that beside the recorder.

“Um, hi, I’m Dan and I honestly have no idea what I’m doing, but I don’t mean you any harm. Can I talk to you?” he asked the open air, but the Ovilus didn’t respond and there was no telling about the recorder until it was analysed and reviewed afterwards.

“Are you the spirit Phil and I were communicating with earlier?” he asked, assuming the spirit that caused the tripod and camera scenario was still in the room, though there was never any real telling.

_Different,_ the Ovilus sprang into life, and Dan gulped. He was potentially in the presence of an angry, unpleasant spirit – alone.

_Didn’t,_ it spoke a few seconds later.

“Didn’t what?” Dan asked.

_Run,_ the Ovilus answered, and Dan felt beads of sweat form on his forehead.

“What are you going to do to us if we don’t leave?” Dan asked aloud, never wishing more to just go home and have a quiet night in, nevermind needing to discuss with Phil why their first kiss was in a renowned haunted house.

Whilst Dan was waiting for an answer, through the pitch-darkness, he made out a distinct shadow figure dart past the room he was in, as was darker than the panelling of the corridor.

“Was that you I just saw?” he asked, swallowing back the lump in his throat that formed at the sight.

_Different,_ the device answered again. Dan ran his hands through his hair in growing frustration.

“Who am I speaking to?” Dan asked, voice braver and louder than he felt, but he didn’t question it.

A crashing sound at the other end of the room was all that answered him. Immediately, Dan shone his torch at the area in question, and noticed a frame that was on the wall was now face-down on the floor. He didn’t see the picture, didn’t think to look, but he flicked the frame over and the oil-painted face of a menacing-looking old man glared back at him.

Dan didn’t ask another question, he ran back to the bed and brought his knees up to his chest, and his fear was overcoming him wholly as tears began to prick behind his eyes.

_Ha ha ha,_ the Ovilus mocked him, but Dan didn’t retaliate, he kept his eyes closed tightly and just prayed that Phil would return momentarily.

For once, luck was on Dan’s side.

“Dan are you okay?” Phil asked as he made his way over to Dan, crouching down beside him as he shone the torch over him. “Why are you crying? Did something happen?” Phil continued to question, but the Ovilus interrupted.

_Ha ha ha,_ it continued to mock Dan, and Phil pressed his lips together. He kept a hand on Dan’s knee as he switched the Ovilus with a different device of similar appearance, but left the recorder where it was.

“The Paranormal Puck’s all set up, let’s go downstairs” Phil spoke softly as Dan tearfully got up from the bed and wiped his eyes. He wasn’t crying majorly, just the odd tear here and there, but it was enough. Enough for whatever lurked in the house to think it had won. Which, in effect, it had. Dan felt terrified for his life, and that was what evil spirits wanted, so Phil had told him in the past, anyway.

They linked hands again as they made their way downstairs and into the kitchen, which was noticeably less furnished than the rest of the house, which clearly was abandoned in a hurry. On the kitchen counter was a computer screen and a keyboard, many tabs open on the screen which Dan couldn’t identify.

Two chairs were already set up in front of the screen and Phil explained the purpose of the Paranormal Puck, it was basically instant messaging between them and the spirits upstairs, where the other device was. Dan and Phil would type something first, then they would wait and see if anything would reply, by manipulating the device as they do the Ovilus.

“These devices are very hit and miss, you don’t always get a reply. We’ve been lucky so far” Phil explained as they sat down, and Dan sat stiff as a board, terrified through and through. “What should we say?” Phil asked, but Dan quickly shifted the keyboard in front of him, typing furiously.

**[23:42] DaP:** Do you not want us to be here?

“As you can tell I set our messages to read from DaP, for obvious reasons. If we get a reply, it’ll read from GHST, also for obvious reasons” Phil elaborated, and Dan let out a small chuckle, at Phil’s silliness.

They waited until minutes and minutes passed, and not a response came through the Paranormal Puck, so Phil shifted the keyboard back and began typing.

**[23:49] DaP:** Why are you trying to disrupt our investigation?

“The Puck’s only built in with a thousand words but there’s enough to be able to have an understandable conversation” Phil spoke absentmindedly, something to presumably fill the silence.

**[23:52] GHST:** Leave

**[23:52] GHST:** Not safe

**[23:54] GHST:** Ignore

**[23:54] GHST:** Safe

“What the hell?” Phil whispered as he leaned forward in his seat, rereading the responses over and over.

“It looks like two separate spirits talking to us…” Dan suggested, and Phil turned to him.

“I’ve never seen this happen before, and you know how many of these kind of shows I watch” Phil exclaimed gleefully and clapped his hands together, Dan didn’t know how he could, given what had just been said to them, but as long as Phil was upbeat, Dan felt considerably safer.

**[23:57] DaP:** Are we speaking to more than one spirit?

**[23:58] GHST:** Many

“I’m not going back up there, ever” Dan told Phil firmly, and Phil simply half-smiled in response as he began typing once again.

**[23:58] DaP:** What do you want?

**[23:59] GHST:** Kissed

**[23:59] GHST:** Watched

“Well that’s disturbing” Dan mumbled as Phil cupped his hands to his mouth, no longer a single doubt in his mind that this was 100% legitimate.

“I don’t even know how to even respond to that” Phil stated as he leaned back in his chair, running his hands through his hair.

He didn’t need to.

**[00:00] GHST:** Feed fear

**[00:00] DaP:** What does that mean

**[00:00] GHST:** Brown hair come

**[00:01] GHST:** Cry more

**[00:01] GHST:** Please

“I think they mean you…” Phil trailed off as he turned to face Dan who was shaking his head vigorously and welling up with tears. “We’ll go up together, it’ll be fine, I promise”

“No, Phil, you don’t understand” Dan replied, sobs getting caught in his throat and his speech being broken as a result.

“I’m scared for my life, clearly these things have a vendetta against for fuck knows why and I just can’t be here anymore, I don’t feel safe at all, please can we just leave and get out of here” Dan pleaded, sobbing into his hands. He felt awful, of course, he knew how much this night meant to Phil and how excited he was even if that excitement was now somewhat tainted with fear, it was obvious his adrenaline was pumping. Dan was the opposite.

“Okay, okay, we’ll leave,” Phil replied with a smile, wiping away some of Dan’s tears that were now slipping down his cheeks, and took his hands.

“I’m really sorry, I am, but I just can’t be here when-“

“It’s okay, Dan, really. Your safety comes first, always” Phil cut him off and leaned in for their second kiss, just as gentle as the first, but their lips ghosted over one another just that much longer.

“I’ll go collect all the equipment, you go wait outside in the car, I’ll be out in about twenty minutes” Phil insisted, but Dan shook his head.

“I’m not leaving you alone to go up there, it’s fucking demonic” Dan spluttered through his sobs, and Phil chuckled, and kissed their interlocked hands.

“We’ll be as quick as possible yeah? Scoping out every room together and never leaving each other’s sight” he instructed, and Dan nodded in understanding.

Together, they collected all of the recorders, cameras, tripods and other odd devices in around ten minutes and packed them all away in another five, and Phil locked the door behind them with a sigh.

“I’m sorry we had to leave early” Dan spoke quietly, feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt.

“Hey, listen to me” Phil placed his hands around Dan’s face, ensuring eye contact. “I don’t care, your safety means more to me than a voice on tape or a figure moving past a door, okay? Stop apologising” he pecked Dan’s lips softly and then began packing the bags of equipment into the boot of the car whilst Dan slipped into the passenger seat, still shaking slightly, but the cold, October night are helped substantially, and just being out of the house was the biggest reassurance.

Phil entered the car around a minute later, and placed the keys to the house on the dashboard.

“We’ll need to pop by the council and give the keys back, but then we can go straight home and talk things through, then sleep, then in the morning review the cameras and recorders” Phil gushed.

“Sounds a plan” Dan nodded in agreement, but Phil wasn’t quite finished.

“Then I can send our evidence to all the shows and we’ll be featured guests and honourable mentions”

“I’m not going anywhere near another haunted place, Phil” Dan told him firmly, and Phil shook his head.

“No no no of course not, you’ll be in base camp if not at home, joining the show through Skype and I’ll go for the both of us and kick some ghost booty… so to speak” Phil pitched the idea and Dan burst into laughter, it was a feeling he had missed considerably. Phil smiled warmly knowing Dan was slowly cheering up and recovering from the traumatic few hours.

“For real though, if we get some class EVPs or evidence of the thing that terrorised you, I’m sending it in to all the shows, we’re getting recognised and acknowledged for it… Wow I’m really too into this whole thing, aren’t I?” Phil blushed as he realised he was rambling, but Dan shook his head.

“It’s not a bad thing, with all due respect. Maybe just get out a little more” he replied, and they both shared a hearty laugh.

“So rude, don’t come crying to me when my name’s up in lights as the greatest paranormal evidence capturer” Phil announced sarcastically, and Dan laughed again.

“Such a nerd” he laughed, as the house fell out of sight of the wingmirrors and the bright lights of London welcomed them home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I GOT A HALLOWEEN FIC UP IN TIME YAY GO ME
> 
> Sorry about not uploading in two weeks, uni does that to a person, i'm afraid
> 
> But I hope you liked this fic! Please let me know what you thought x
> 
> Show this fic some love on tumblr too; cafephan.tumblr.com x


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